-Zero-

Whoever said that life is a miracle, obviously hadn't died before.

I didn't live a great life. I admit, it most definitely wasn't one of the ones you'd see on movie screens. It didn't have any unexpected twists or turns, nor did it have any deep moral lessons that led me down a path of righteousness. I lived in a home where daddy was too much of a pushover and mummy was always looking for a new daddy. I almost didn't think she'd find someone until one day she did. I expected as much though, daddy was starting to get heavy handed after a few drinks and that was where she drew the line.

"Don't you dare lay a hand on me you oaf!"

"But darling, I said I was sorry, you were just being so-" He stopped, his face turning sour but unable to continue.

"So, what?!" Her face was as red as her hair, and her words burned through him. "You've always been a coward!"

"…Please don't say that."

"Even after everything you still speak like a fucking idiot." She rubs away at her forehead, a headache she'd had for years now.

"You don't mean that, love-"

"I really do. I thought you were different."

"Honey, I can change, please-" She stops listening to him, instead turning to me, sat on the couch that acted as a barrier between them. It was all that stopped my father from grovelling and my mother from clawing his throat out.

"Goodbye darling, I'll come back for you." She had promised me, kissing my forehead with a shaky breath and a remorseful look in her eyes. With a final pat on the head and my father chasing at her heels, she left.

Daddy truly did love her. Unfortunately, his love was never enough to amount to anything. She knew it, he knew it and even I, the bumbling 8-year-old at the time knew that too. The only thing his love came to be ended in a deep sorrow that lasted a short lifetime and a bleak empty look in his eyes that stayed to his final days. He found comfort in a good friend of his though, Jack and Daniel. Or J.D. for short, his favourite long necked friend, clutched tightly in his calloused palms.

He lived only three more years after his wife left, and then, I was passed onto my grandparents. I'd cried heartily at his funeral, my little palms digging into my face, my grandparents being nothing more than a warm hand rubbing circles into my back as I wept. They had fumbled and groaned about their 'wayward daughter' not being able to 'stop fooling around' and take care of her child in a time like this, but she never responded to their messages and calls.

I thought she wanted to avoid her parents, but a part of me knew that when she left she had no intention of returning. It was saddening, and weighted heavily on me until I accepted the truth. She didn't want to come back for me. If she did, she would've called, written, or something. And that tore me almost as much as the loss of my father. I was an orphan. By the choice of my own parents. I craved them deeply, though it was clearly not mutual. What use are parents if all they do is leave?

They told me stories about her, about how she'd always wanted to be an actress and had even dropped out of university for it, not wanting to be Doctors like they were. But then she got knocked up by my father and was 'persuaded' into a marriage. The rest was recent history. I thought acting was a good dream to have, but they disagreed. So, I disagreed too. And as the years pushed by, I started to disagree with anything and everything that my mother ever was.

We three had lived together in a small house on the border of a large city.

I grew up like any other child would.

(Or as best as they could without their parents).

Every morning, it would be a "get up sweetheart!" From either of my grandparents and I'd pull myself out of bed to get ready for the day. I'd come down to a made breakfast (they would never let me starve, even if I did feel a little more towards the chubby side) and then I'd eat amongst the soft but happy voices of my guardians. When the hand of the clock had reached ten little dashes away from the 12, I'd pick up my schoolbag, give them both kisses and run out to my bus. It would take approximately half an hour to get to school, and when we did, we'd arrive at a decent establishment called school. We'd spend around six hours every day being taught the basics of human life and really, nothing could be better than that.

When I fell and scraped my knee, it would take three days to heal and when someone had called me a bad name, I'd cry. When I'd hit middle school, I had friends and enemies, and crush on the guy who sat in front of me. I'd even feel the little green monster gnaw on me whenever he talked a pretty girl.

In high-school I was a slightly above average student, but never enough to gather any attention.

Not that I wanted that.

God forbid I got that, so I always played it safe, within my comfort zone. I got by with A's, B's and a few C's. And when I finished that chapter in my life, I managed to scrape into a university, working towards a science degree.

Life was nothing short of average.

No unnatural powers, no crazy accidents (not yet) and no epic adventure to teach me life lessons in friendship or some bullshit. It was peaceful, and I guess I should be thankful, but I always had the need for more. I wanted more than the typical nine-to-five, I didn't want to just settle down when I hit my aging years, nor did I want to grow old in some old care home telling the poor nurses stories that I wish had happened because nothing happened.

But one day, things changed.

It was snowing.

One of my lectures had finished late so I was left to walk home to an empty apartment. Everyone else had diverged into their own paths and I was left walking a quiet road home. Most nights with my ear buds stuffed into my ears, and hands constantly shuffling in my pockets for heat; I'd buried my face deeper into my thick scarf.

A shaky and bare hand reached out of my pocket and hit the button on the traffic light as I'd waited the already slow traffic grind to a halt as the colours had shifted from green, to amber and finally to the red. I didn't even wait for the green man to tell me that I could safely cross when I did. And, my impatience cost me much more than anything else had in my entire life.

As I trudged along the short walk between the two parallel pieces of pavement, a truck was speeding down the concrete at a very illegal speed.

(You see, the driver had just been fired that day (or they better have been) and was drunk out of their mind, and had decided to take one last fucking joy ride around the city in a 90-tonne hunk of death at 60-70mph).

My music was blaring at full volume and my eyes were focused on the path ahead of me so much so, that by the time that I had seen its headlights approach me from the corner of my eyes, my arm had already suffered at least multiple fractures and my ribs were being collapsed into my lungs like a foldable fucking chair. I felt bones bend and crack in ways that a body shouldn't, until the force of the truck had forced my head to whip against the cold hard metal and I saw darkness.

Any pain that my body was beginning to pick up on had disappeared and I had entered a numb and almost euphoric state of mind. My life had flashed before my eyes and I must say, it was as I'd remembered it. Simple, straightforward and gone.

My grandparents would never be able to cry at my graduation, my mother would never see her baby girl become a woman (if she ever came back) and my dad… He was probably waiting at whatever afterlife had been expecting me. I didn't think I was good enough for heaven, and hell was too harsh a punishment for someone as plain as myself.

So where was I going?

But before I could ponder on that thought, my consciousness began to fade. I came to realise that this was death. Cold and quiet, like sleep but much more permanent. So, with that, I let go.

As far as I was concerned, that life was over.

It's my time, I had told myself.

What I didn't know was that there was someone else who had very different ideas for me.

For those who have read this before, I am editing each chapter! Please look out for them and let me know your thoughts!

Edited: 13/05/18